The city of Malibu is suing two local agencies that manage regional hiking trails and public parkland in a bid to establish the city’s ownership of public trails within the city’s borders and to address the agencies’ “decades-long mismanagement” of the trails.
Malibu’s lawsuit challenging trail ownership claims by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy (SMMC) and the Mountains Recreation & Conservation Authority (MRCA) was filed April 14 in Los Angeles County Superior Court. In a news release, the city indicated it was attempting to affirm its ownership of public trails and easements within the city borders along Murphy Way and Winding Way.
The MRCA has failed to adequately clear brush along the trail easements, according to the complaint. Such failures in vegetation clearing by the MRCA in the Malibu Bluffs led to fire damage to homes in 2024 during the Broad Fire and along Malibu Canyon Road during the subsequent Franklin Fire, the city said.
Malibu Mayor Bruce Silverstein said the city did not opt for litigation lightly.
“For more than a year, we worked collaboratively with MRCA to try to resolve our concerns,” he said in a prepared statement. “When those efforts proved unsuccessful, the City Council concluded that legal action was the only option to effect change.”
The city is attempting to ensure an adequate stewardship of the public property and that residents and visitors are properly protected, according to Silverstein. The trailhead parking area is inadequate, leading hikers to park their cars along a dangerous section of Pacific Coast Highway, Malibu reported, adding that a 44-year-old transient was struck and killed on PCH near Winding Way earlier this year.
The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy rejected the allegations in the lawsuit.
“The … conservancy is a proud steward of all of its trails and open spaces that serve the 10 million residents of Los Angeles and Ventura County and has worked diligently with its state, federal and local government neighbors to provide safe and open access,” the conservancy said in a statement emailed to the Southern California Record.
The SMMC characterized the lawsuit as an attempt to assert ownership over state-owned land.
“The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy will vigorously defend and protect the public-access rights of all Californians to these lands and trails that the state taxpayers own and have a right to use,” the statement says.
The MRCA implied on Instagram that Malibu is attempting to block the public’s use of the trails within the city’s borders.
“The city of Malibu is asserting ownership over this trail, (and) SMMC disputes that,” the authority’s Instagram post states. “Don’t let the city of Malibu try to stop you from using it. Not withstanding city of Malibu’s lawsuit, Escondido Canyon Park and Waterfalls remain open for public enjoyment.”
The city, however, called that allegation false and accused the MRCA of attempting to inflame public sentiments.
“Malibu has not closed, and is not seeking to close, Escondido Canyon Park or the Waterfalls,” the city said in a news release. “Nowhere in our complaint does the city seek to restrict public access. In fact, the entire purpose of this lawsuit is the opposite: to ensure that these trails are safe, properly managed and accessible to everyone who wants to enjoy them.”
In the lawsuit, Malibu argues that ownership rights to the public trails in question were transferred from Los Angeles County to the city when Malibu was incorporated in 1991. The city didn’t discover the full ownership history of the trail easements until 2024, the complaint says.
“The city brings this action so the city and its parks department – a department with a highly respected track record – can do what the Purported Owners (of the trails) have not: protect the hikers and visitors who frequent the public trails, properly maintain the public trails and protect the sensitive coastal resources that are meant to be enjoyed by the public,” the lawsuit says.
